The Pratchett Quote File v6.0 (original) (raw)

The Pratchett Quote File v6.0 [](interesting-times.html) [](index.html) [](feet-of-clay.html)

The person on the other side was a young woman. Very obviously a young woman. There was no possible way that she could have been mistaken for a young man in any language, especially Braille.

-- The goddess with the nice earrings (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Ahahahahaha! Ahahahaha! Aahahaha!
BEWARE!!!!!
Yrs sincerely
The Opera Ghost

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Nanny Ogg found herself embarrassed to even think about this, and this was unusual because embarrassment normally came as naturally to Nanny as altruism comes to a cat.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

He had a unique stride: it looked as though his body was being dragged forward and his legs had to flail around underneath it, landing wherever they could find room. It wasn't so much a walk as a collapse, indefinitely postponed.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

She'd even given herself a middle initial - X - which stood for "someone who has a cool and exciting middle name".

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

"What sort of person," said Salzella patiently, "sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

"The singers all loathe the sight of one another, the chorus despises the singers, they both hate the orchestra, and everyone fears the conductor; the staff on one prompt side won't talk to the staff on the opposite prompt side, the dancers are all crazed from hunger in any case..."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Most people in Lancre, as the saying goes, went to bed with the chickens and got up with the cows. [footnote: Er. That is to say, they went to bed at the same time as the chickens went to bed, and got up at the same time as the cows got up. Loosely worded sayings can really cause misunderstandings.]

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

"...my father is the Emperor of Klatch and my mother is a small tray of raspberry puddings."

-- Agnes tells Christine about herself (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Instead, people would take pains to tell her that beauty was only skin-deep, as if a man ever fell for an attractive pair of kidneys.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

A day ago the future had looked aching and desolate, and now it looked full of surprises and terror and bad things happening to people... If she had anything to do with it anyway.

-- Granny Weatherwax commits optimism (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

- "There have been...accidents."
- "What kind of accidents?"
- "The kind of accidents you prefer to call...accidents."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

- "But I don't believe in reincarnation!" he protested.
- SQUEAK.
- And this, Mr Pounder understood with absolute rodent clarity, meant:
Reincarnation believes in you.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

It was done far more often than the audiences ever realized -- when singers had a sore throat, or had completely dried, or had turned up so drunk they could barely stand, or, in one notorious instance many years previously, had died in the interval and subsequently sung their famous aria by means of a broom-handle stuck up their back and their jaw operated with a piece of string.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

After you'd known Christine for any length of time, you found yourself fighting a desire to look into her ear to see if you could spot daylight coming the other way.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

"Well, basically there are two sorts of opera,' said Nanny, who also had the true witch's ability to be confidently expert on the basis of no experience whatsoever. 'There's your heavy opera, where basically people sing foreign and it goes like "Oh oh oh, I am dyin', oh, I am dyin', oh, oh, oh, that's what I'm doin'", and there's your light opera, where they sing in foreign and it basically goes "Beer! Beer! Beer! Beer! I like to drink lots of beer!", although sometimes they drink champagne instead. That's basically all of opera, reely."

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

No male had ever touched Agnes before, except perhaps to push her over and steal her sweets.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Nanny could get a statue to cry on her shoulder and say what it really thought about pigeons.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual harrassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

It is the fate of all banisters worth sliding down that there is something nasty waiting at the far end.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Maskerade)

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